


to ███  who are in my thoughts

by corgasbord



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Introspection, Sparring, filed under 'interactions i never thought i'd write', not super romantic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 04:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgasbord/pseuds/corgasbord
Summary: The Dragon Witch and the Dragon of Echigo have more in common than one might expect.





	to ███  who are in my thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xairathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/gifts).

> did you guys know that jalter and kagetora actually do interact briefly in gudaguda 4? because i found out a while ago and i haven't been the same. anyway this is dedicated to the captain of the s.s. jaltora, who bullied me into posting this when i wasn't planning to. hope y'all enjoy!

Hurt, Kagetora has come to learn, is simply what Jeanne Alter is used to.

For the longest time she couldn’t understand (still doesn’t, really, because understanding is for humans and she is not one of them), but she’s begun to ascertain why it is that Jeanne Alter lashes out so. Jeanne Alter’s every waking moment is consumed by a pain shared only by beings who shouldn’t exist. If she doesn’t take it out on others, it will eat away at her like the very fact of her fabricated past life does.

Kagetora can’t relate. Not to Jeanne Alter, not to her family, not to anyone. She will never feel Jeanne Alter’s pain, but if nothing else, she knows by now how to draw it out of her.

Jeanne Alter drives her sword into the concrete at her feet with a high-pitched howl. Tendrils of flame erupt as though spit from the ground itself, a line of it fired straight for Kagetora. She takes a running leap to the side and calls forth her other weapons in a shower of gold dust. This has gone on long enough that she would think Jeanne Alter’s stamina would be flagging, but her rage hasn’t subsided. It will continue to burn even when her body can no longer sustain it, even if it takes her along with it.

_How sad_, Kagetora thinks, but when she takes up her arms and sends them flying at Jeanne Alter, her smile hasn’t faded. She can’t parse why it’s sad, really, only that it is. Only that it makes something hot, painfully so, lick at her chest much like the fires crackling to a slow death on the asphalt.

Jeanne Alter falls at her onslaught, but not completely. Perhaps it’s her pride that won’t let her body drop its entire weight. She settles for a knee instead, fingers curled tight around her sword’s hilt and breaths staggered. Sweat slips from beneath her headpiece to trace the line of her jaw and drip from her chin. She looks spent, but not too badly injured. That’s good; Kagetora would like to believe she’s mastered the art of battle well enough to not break bones where not necessary, at least.

Kagetora steps over to her on comparatively light feet, bright smile hung back in its place. “Are you done?” she asks, voice saccharine with patience.

Jeanne Alter only responds with a snarl and another blast of heat hurled in her direction, which Kagetora dodges without much effort. That exertion proves to be the last Jeanne Alter can afford. Her head hangs then with a wheeze, and when at last she deigns to speak her voice is hoarse: “Fuck off, Bitchamonten. I don’t wanna hear any shit from you.”

“I don’t intend to gloat.” She inclines, then reaches out, palm upturned. She already knows how the gesture will be received, but each time this happens she tries, because it’s polite, because it feels like she should.

Jeanne Alter, as expected, slaps the proffered hand away with more force than necessary. “Don’t look down on me,” she says, and takes a spit on the ground near Kagetora’s shoes. “I can get up by myself.”

Kagetora tilts her head. In spite of her words, Jeanne Alter makes no moves to rise, her breaths still harsh and stilted and her grip on her sword tight enough for her gauntlets to squeak with it. She wonders if Jeanne Alter plans to remain like this, then. There are times when she does, and most of those times are spent alone, the only thing Kagetora leaves with her a warning not to sulk for too long—running the simulators takes a lot of Chaldea’s power, you know.

“Okay,” she says after a moment.

As she turns away, though, she feels a tug on her robes. She glances back, eyebrows raised and smile inquisitive, to find Jeanne Alter’s fist twisted in the fabric up to the knuckles. She’s not quite looking at Kagetora, the scowl meant for her fixed on the ground instead.

“I didn’t fucking say you could leave, either. I’m not done with you yet.”

“Hm?” Kagetora faces her fully again. “Surely you don’t plan to keep dragging this out. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“Quit flattering yourself. Just- just shut up.” Her grip on Kagetora’s robes doesn’t loosen a hair. “Fighting really is all you think about.”

“Are you not the same?” Kagetora asks. “Is that not why we do battle like this?”

Jeanne Alter doesn’t have an answer for that. Kagetora notes the tension in her jaw, the way her teeth grit as if there are words she could say but has chosen to crush up instead. In response, her own expression softens at the corners. She lowers herself onto her knees to bring her eyes level with Jeanne Alter’s. Jeanne Alter won’t meet her stare, but that’s fine. If silence is what is desired of her, then silence is what she’ll sit in, the same smile stuck to her face as always.

“I’m not like you,” is what Jeanne Alter says after what could be seconds or minutes. “I’ve got shit to worry about that isn’t fighting.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like-” Jeanne Alter fumbles, “like people coming to bug me about things because they mistake me for that holy woman.”

Kagetora blinks. “So that’s what you’re upset about.”

“I’m not upset!” Jeanne Alter snaps. The tension between them flares up again, and for a moment Kagetora thinks a fire might, too. It doesn’t, though. It dies from Jeanne Alter’s eyes in seconds as though she’d tired herself out spewing it onto the pavement minutes earlier, the only indication it was ever there now blackened streaks on the ground and the sweat streaking her face. “It’s nothing to fucking get _upset_ about. Just annoyed, okay? Because it’s fucking annoying.”

“You do seem very annoyed.”

“Yeah, because you’re annoying, too.”

“Yet you came to spar with me anyway.” That’s a sincere question Kagetora has yet to have answered: why Jeanne Alter, no matter how irritated with Kagetora she acts, seeks her company over anyone else’s. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have anyone else.

Or maybe, even though their most intimate conversations are of the physical kind, the violent kind, Kagetora’s company still hurts her less than anyone else’s.

Jeanne Alter doesn’t have an answer for that, either. Kagetora decides to press her: “Does it help?”

“The fuck does it matter to you,” Jeanne Alter says.

“Hm. I wonder,” Kagetora says, because she’s not entirely certain herself. “You could call it curiosity, if that makes you feel better.”

Jeanne Alter sneers. “The hell it does. And how is that any of your business, anyway? Prying into my feelings, tch. Get fucked.”

“Well, there’s no point in doing something if it doesn’t benefit you somehow, right? Or at least, humans seem to think that way.” Kagetora’s eyes widen along with her smile. “Oh, I suppose I just answered my own question.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jeanne Alter says. “Because I’m not human.”

“Is that so.” Kagetora doesn’t try to argue with that. There’s no fault in not being human, after all.

(There’s no fault in not being human. That’s what she tells herself often on her forays through Chaldea, observing the other Servants. They mill around and talk amongst themselves, much like her men had. They cast sidelong glances her way, but never invite her to join them, just like her men had.)

Kagetora instead brings her own gloved palm to rest atop the back of Jeanne Alter’s. Jeanne Alter flinches, a dangerous spark lighting in her eyes, but Kagetora says, “That alone gives us more in common than you think.”

That’s enough to freeze her. Jeanne Alter stares, struck dumb. Kagetora waits for her to regain her senses and attempt to set her ablaze again, but such an outburst never comes. Unexpectedly, what leaves Jeanne Alter’s mouth is no vitriol, but a cracked and bitter laugh.

“Stupid,” she says. Her forehead rests against her forearm with the soft _clink_ of her headpiece on her gauntlet, obscuring her face. “That’s gotta be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Still, Kagetora notes that Jeanne Alter doesn’t deny it, nor does she jerk away from Kagetora’s touch. She remains like that for a period long enough that Kagetora stops counting the seconds, letting the misery roll off of her like ash, and Kagetora is there to stay until the inevitable moment where Jeanne Alter insists on letting it cling to her alone.

**Author's Note:**

> the real reason i don't ever write jalter is because "jalter" in narrative text sounds silly but "jeanne alter" sounds clunky but "avenger" isn't specific enough


End file.
